Emergency situations arise in which responders (e.g., fire department personnel, police department personnel, disease control personnel) from one or more safety agencies are brought to a site of the emergency situation. For some emergency situations, the leadership of the responders attempts to keep track of the personnel so that they can be sure that all personnel have been accounted for and have left the site safely. One current system for keeping track of such safety personnel is manual (using Velcro backed tags that identify the responders) and may rely on the heavily stressed safety personnel, which leads to errors in which a person is either identified as having left the site without actually having done so, or as not having left the site when actually already having left. Either situation is bad. Another existing system is a computer based, but it relies on identification of radio power on and off states. These states are not always synonymous with entering and leaving a state of active involvement with the emergency situation, and some errors can arise.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the FIGS. are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of embodiments of the present invention.
The apparatus and method components have been represented where appropriate by conventional symbols in the drawings, showing only those specific details that are pertinent to understanding the embodiments of the present invention so as not to obscure the disclosure with details that will be readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of the description herein.